Saturday, April 19, 2008

This spring powered toy made out of only things you have in the house already is seriously great. If you have any questions post them in the comments section and I will address them.

What you need:
Wooden match, Sandpaper, a wooden clothespin (this will be the peg for the peg gun), Miter saw, a cork and some rubber bands.
A Dremel tool will make this much quicker but is not needed. Masking tape and twist ties can be used for some tweaking of the design.

Step one: disassemble your clothespin.

Step two: using your Miter saw and sand paper carve out a pathway that is the width of a match and another space for the metal clip to pass through that is the same width one half of the clothespin. See photos.

Step Three: Take the other half of the clothespin and make a notch for the spring to clip in. See photo for before and after comparison.

Now test your sanding job by rubberbanding the two halves together and trying to launch a match. If you are unable to cock the gun by pushing a match through the barrel you will need to either cut it again with a less deep grove or fill part of your grove with tape.

If you are having trouble with getting the metal part in see the photos at the end of the post.

Step Four:If it worked you can now glue it together with wood glue. Put the rubberbands on to hold it tight while it dries.

Step Five: While that is drying it is time to prepare the cork. Cut a grove in the cork that is the width of the clothespin that is slightly angled so that when inserted the clothespin makes a ~110 degree angle.

Step Six: Once the Glue is dry take of the rubber bands and glue on the cork. I used a vice grip to hold it tight while drying.

Once this is dry you are done. Now make another and challenge your friends.Placing the metal part.

This was fun and relatively simple all you need is two RC cars of different frequencies, rubber bands, push pins and balloons. In this case the cars are TYCO canned heat. I think this is pretty self explanatory so I will not go into a detailed explanation. The only trick is pushing the pin through the rubber band. It seems to work best at a 45 degree angle upward.